For Jeremy.

Harvey had been a dissolute youth. He’d always thought it came from being born during the Roaring Twenties, and having to grow up during the Great Depression. Maybe his mother was a little too fond of the bathtub gin that was so popular in Chicago. Maybe it was the poverty that sent him out on the road at such a young age, riding the rails. Lots of kids did it at the time. Seemed the only thing to do, given the circumstances.
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Here are some ideas: Office Bricolage.

Branford Marsalis played in Morgantown last night. It was a very good show, and I only wish I’d been feeling a little better, as then I would have enjoyed it more.

It’s a four piece band: Branford Marsalis on saxophone, Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass, and Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums. Michael and I both really liked the drummer, who was from Pittsburgh; apparently his mother had come down from the show, and he really seemed to enjoy himself.

The show started at 7:30 with Joey Calderazzo playing two pieces solo, then Brandord came out and played a piece and after that they were joined by the rest of the band. The show ran until around 10:00, which was longer than I had expected, but we were quite pleased. They played pieces by the band members, but ended with the Duke Ellington tune “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” which I really like (although my brain kept wanting to hear Ella Fitzgerald).

I decided at some point last night, that we should watch try to catch more live jazz, because jazz players are really a lot of fun to watch.

Cable network E! Entertainment will telecast daily half-hour courtroom reenactments chronicling Michael Jackson’s trial on child molestation charges, network President Ted Harbert announced Tuesday, getting Winter Television Press Tour 2005 off to a roaring start here.

But you really should read the rest of the article…

His announcement was met with some laughter from The Reporters Who Cover Television, which seemed to take him aback a bit. The BSkyB suit in the audience didn’t seem any too happy either. Maybe they should have made the announcement immediately after unveiling an E! series called “Craft Corner Deathmatch” in which women who like to use glue guns and crochet things engage in deathmatch-like competition.

Harbert said he plans to hire “the best actors we can find” but that none of them will be name actors. He already has someone in mind to play Jackson; the actor, Harbert said, has the ability to look like Jackson “a lot.”

Oh, well if he looks like Jackson “a lot” then it’s got to be great!

Finally downloaded the software for my new camera. I need to delve into it a little more deeply however, because it looks like there are fewer export options than my old camera has.

But the pictures are great! If you’d like the see family pictures, they’re available here.

If you have no interest in seeing my family pictures, you can still see the really cool gift my brother got me for Christmas.
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My husband, Apprentice of the Obvious.

Find your name in Tolkein Elvish!

MICHELLE (f.) – feminine form of MICHAEL (q.v.), thus Manveri

No, I really haven’t fallen off the earth, I’m just enjoying my vacation.

We got snow flurries Christmas day, and snow fall the day after. So that’s something anyway.

When not eating, I’ve been catching up on my reading: Robert Silverberg’s “Legends II”, The newest Thieves’ World, books two and three of the Lemony Snicket series, the latest Sword and Sorceress… I love it when my toughest decisions are what to read next. Terry Pratchett or Robin Hobb?

Hope your holiday is just as wonderful!

Saturday, November 13 1:24 p.m. How rude.

Saturday, October 16 4:06 p.m. Topless frisbee players were reported at the Community Park. The field was closed, and the bare-chested disc flingers covered up their immodest wiggly bits.

6:13 p.m. But at least a few – actually, 15 – of the once-brazen topless athletes remained behind, smoking and drinking.

So I’ve had it with FedEx.

We order a lot fo stuff through the mail (in fact most of my Christmas shopping was mail order) and so we get a lot of packages delivered to our house. Mostly it’s UPS and USPS that deliver, but sometimes it’s FedEx.

So how did FedEx incur my wrath? Well, they delivered a package the end of last month. I signed the tag (which I missed the first day, because it was a door tag, and I usually look for the UPS stickies) to have the package left. Which they did.

Unfortunately, they left the package behind the storm door, on a day when we had severe wind warnings the entire day, so they storm door was blown open and damaged. Michael immediately called FedEx, who said they would send someone out to look at the door and they’d get back to us.

No big deal.

Except that they never got back to us.

So last Monday I called, and was told they’d call me back that night.

No phone call Monday or Tuesday.

Wednesday I started to get mad. I called the national number, and got the local number to call. Where no one answered. For two days.

Friday I called the national number again and told the very nice person that I was starting to get irritated that no one was calling me back. They said someone would call me right back. Which they did. And told me that someone would be to my house to fix my door Friday or Saturday.

It’s now Tuesday morning and my door is still broken.

Now please understand me here. I’m not mad that it’s taking them so long to fix the door. I understand that it’s the holidays and people are incredibly busy. What makes me mad is telling me that something will be done at a certain time, and then NOT DOING IT.

If they’d have said, “I’m sorry, we’re really busy right now, we won’t have time to fix your door until after the holidays,” I would have been fine with that. I really would. I understand being busy. But don’t tell me that you’re going to do something and then not do it.

So if the door isn’t fixed tomorrow, I’m going to call the national people again and voice my displeasure.

And I’m not going to deal with FedEx ever again if I don’t have to.

Skeletal systems of cartoon characters
(via Making Light)

I Need This On a T-Shirt:
“Impaired by Wordiness”

verbose \ver-BOHSS\ adjective
1 : containing more words than necessary : wordy; also : impaired by wordiness
2 : given to wordiness

From Merriam Webster

We finally watched Buffy Season 7 this weekend (and I do mean we watched it all between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening–I felt slightly motion sick by the time we were done) and I have to admit that I came away feeling a little disappointed. Although I was pleased with the ending, I just didn’t feel that Season 7 was anywhere near as good as previous seasons, and I also had a problem with some of the things that happened–they just seemed inconsistent. (i.e. Buffy continually protects Spike, but has to kill Anya without giving her a chance.)

But besides that, we enjoyed it, and now we have Angel, seasons 1 through 3 to watch over Christmas break. (I’m hoping that it is, at least for most of it, episodic, so we don’t have those fits where we HAVE to watch six straight episodes to find out what happend. And it’s not just Buffy that did that: Deep Space Nine did the same thing at the start of Season 6 and the end of Season 7. Once you start watching you can’t quit until it’s resolved.

Unless of course you’re one of those freaks that likes suspense and waiting.

And I was really bothered by one thing: Why would you have to get your driver’s license renewed in California every year after losing an eye? There’s no such regulation here in West (by God) Virginia. At least for people who are blind in one eye, and I don’t see why there would be a difference between the two. Some I’m rather curious as to whether that is a real rule, or just something they made up. Because I can’t see any reason for that to be a rule. (And I do have a reason for saying this–I have a family member who is blind in one eye, so I really don’t understand why there would be such a regulation. But then I suppose California is weird like that.)

(Thanks Erin!)

Here’s something for Morgantownies.

Go to this Health Sciences page.

Click on the link that says Photo Tour.

Scroll through the pictures and look for the picture “Medical Center 1960”

Figure out what’s wrong?

You’d think they’d have been able to find a picture from the 1960s instead of using one that is pretty obviously from the late 70s early 80s.